Gerald Laing: Myth & Muse: The Cult of Celebrity

Over five decades Gerald Laing explored the cult of celebrity. He made the myth and mystery of stars his subject, elevating them to become his muse. Enigmatic and depersonalised through dot art and abstraction, their public image – disseminated through mass imagery – often belies tales of tragedy.

Laing’s first Pop image, Anna Karina, 1962 (right), was painted while he was a student at St Martin’s School of Art. The French New Wave film star was transformed by Laing from a newspaper photograph measuring 1.5 inches to a canvas twelve feet high. He went on to do something similar to the original pin-up girl, Brigitte Bardot, in 1968, an image that has become synonymous with the British Pop Art movement.

Lincoln Convertible, 1963-64, was created shortly after Laing’s return to the UK from the US during which time JFK was assassinated. This vast and irregularly shaped canvas depicts the car in which the President has been hit and is slumped forward. Jackie leans over him. It was the event that would trigger the era of the mass conspiracy theory.

During the 1970s Laing created a series of bronzes of his wife, Galina Vassilovna Golikova, as a model and muse. The Galina series, 1973-77, comprises a group of eleven bronzes, each depicting her through curves and arches, depersonalising Galina as she was transitioned from the image of a wife to that of an enigmatic muse.

The mass media imagery which struck Laing upon his arrival in the US in the 1960s stayed with him all his life. In the early years of the 21st century, his interest was stirred again, and the lives of Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse were committed to canvas. As he did in the 60s and 70s, his technique depersonalises the subject and, by the end, renders them as remote as they were originally.

For a full list of available works after the end of the exhibition, please contact the gallery.